Galaxy S8 vs iPhone 7 - which is better?

11 Apr 2017 by James Rogerson

Samsung only really has one rival: Apple. And its brand-new flagship – the Samsung Galaxy S8 – is sure to be one of the bestselling phones of the year, rivalled only by the iPhone 7 and eventually the iPhone 8.

The iPhone 8 isn’t expected for months yet, but you can buy the iPhone 7 now and the Samsung Galaxy S8 soon, so we decided to put these two phones head to head.

They’re both brilliant handsets but there are a lot of differences in a lot of areas, and we’ve broken them down across all categories, from design and display, to power, camera and more.

Design

The Samsung Galaxy S8 has a very different design to the iPhone 7, but they both have a high-end look.

The Galaxy S8 has a metal frame and a glass back, while the iPhone 7 has a metal unibody. That makes the Samsung Galaxy S8 a little more fragile, but it’s also IP68 certified dust and water resistant (meaning it can be submerged up to 1.5 metres deep for up to 30 minutes), while the iPhone 7 is just IP67 certified (meaning it can be submerged just 1 metre deep).

The iPhone 7 is slimmer and lighter than the Galaxy S8 at 7.1mm and 138g, to the S8’s 8mm and 155g. It’s also a lot more compact, at 138.3 x 67.1, while the S8 is 148.9 x 68.1. But Samsung’s phone actually has much smaller bezels, so it looks to be making the most of its size. It also has a striking curved screen, which we’ll discuss in more detail below.

Ultimately the Samsung Galaxy S8 is probably the better-looking handset, especially when you consider that the iPhone 7 has much the same design as Apple has been using for a few years now, but both phones look great and the iPhone 7 is more pocket friendly.

Display

The display is the highlight of the Samsung Galaxy S8, as it has a massive 5.8-inch one with a resolution of 1440 x 2960. That makes it a sharp 570 pixels per inch. It’s also curved, and uses Super AMOLED for bright and vibrant images.

Plus, the S8’s display supports mobile HDR and with its large size and 18.5:9 aspect ratio you can comfortably run two apps side by side.

The iPhone 7 can’t really compete here, but it has some strong points. It has a small 4.7-inch 750 x 1334 screen with a pixel density of 326 pixels per inch. So it’s not as sharp, it also doesn’t support mobile HDR or have an unusual aspect ratio, it’s not curved and it’s an LCD rather than AMOLED screen, so colours don’t pop as much.

It’s still a high-quality display though and the compact size could work in its favour, as the massive Samsung Galaxy S8 won’t appeal to everyone.

Power

Both of these phones are exceedingly powerful, with the Samsung Galaxy S8 packing 4GB of RAM and an octa-core Exynos 8895 chipset which has four cores running at 2.3GHz and four clocked at 1.7GHz.

The iPhone 7 meanwhile has 2GB of RAM and a quad-core 2.34GHz Apple A10 Fusion processor. So the S8 has more cores and RAM to play with, but the iPhone 7 consistently tops the benchmarks for single core performance – meaning it should be faster for anything that doesn’t rely on multiple cores.

You don’t need to worry about any of this too much though, as in practice both phones offer some of the fastest and smoothest smartphone performance you’ll find.

Camera

The Samsung Galaxy S8 has a 12MP rear camera with optical image stabilisation and so does the iPhone 7. The two cameras aren’t quite identical – the iPhone 7 for example has a powerful quad-LED flash, while the Samsung Galaxy S8 has a larger lens opening, so it can capture more light. Both though are among the best smartphone cameras.

The similarities continue around the front, where the iPhone 7 has a 7MP snapper and the Galaxy S8 has an 8MP one. Arguably the S8 has the edge here, as it has that extra megapixel and an autofocus, but both are highly competent.

Battery life, memory and connectivity

There’s a 3000mAh battery in the Galaxy S8 and a 1960mAh one in the iPhone 7, both of which are on the small side for the phones they’re powering. As such you’ll be charging either one of these every day, but the Galaxy S8 should last you a little longer, and it has fast and wireless charging, which the iPhone 7 doesn’t.

There’s no choice of storage with the Galaxy S8, but it comes with a meaty 64GB as standard, along with a microSD card slot that supports cards of up to 256GB. The iPhone 7 has no microSD card slot, but you can choose between 32GB, 128GB or a massive 256GB of built in storage.

Connectivity options include Wi-Fi, 3G, and 4G for both. They also both have NFC, though the iPhone 7 can only use it for Apple Pay, and Bluetooth, but the iPhone 7 has Bluetooth 4.2, while the Galaxy S8 has the faster and longer range Bluetooth 5.0. The iPhone 7 also has a fingerprint scanner, while the S8 has both a fingerprint and iris scanner.

Price and availability

The Samsung Galaxy S8 is launching in the UK on April 28th, but you can pre-order it now for £689, or from around £35 per month on contract.

The iPhone 7 meanwhile is already available and starts at £599 or from a similar monthly price to the S8 on contract. Though note that you get less storage for that money.

Conclusion

Both of these are top class phones, but the Samsung Galaxy S8 looks to be the better handset in most ways that matter. It has a smarter, sharper screen, a more modern design and a bigger battery.

It also has extras like an iris scanner and the Bixby AI assistant, though the camera and power are comparable to the iPhone 7’s.

The main reason you might want to choose Apple’s phone instead – other than a preference for iOS – is that it’s a lot smaller, which could appeal if you don’t want a phablet. Otherwise, the S8 is probably the one to go for – or wait for the iPhone 8 later this year, but both of these phones are among the best available.